Conventionally, for example, in a video camera or the like, a magnetic tape was used as a record medium to which a video signal that was captured by an image capturing device, converted into digital video data, and compression-encoded was recorded. A magnetic tape was suitable for continuously recording a large amount of data.
On the other hand, in recent years, as a record medium that is recordable and removable from a recording and reproducing apparatus, that has a relatively large recording capacity, and that is suitable for recording AV (Audio/Video) data composed of video data and audio data, a DVD (Digital Versatile Disc) that has a recording capacity equal to or larger than 4.7 GB (Giga Byte) has been widely used. Patent Document “Japanese Patent Application Laid-Open No. 2004-350251” describes an image capturing apparatus that records DVD-Video format data to a recordable type DVD.
Since this recordable type DVD uses the UDF (Universal Disk Format) as a file system, a UDF based computer apparatus can access this recordable type DVD. Since the UDF contains the ISO (International Organization for Standardization) 9660 based format, various types of file systems used for computer apparatus can access the recordable type DVD. When video data and audio data are recorded as a file to this recordable type DVD, since its affinity to other apparatus such as computer apparatus increases, recorded data can be more effectively used.
In addition, in recent years, a product of a video camera that has a built-in hard disk drive that records video data and audio data that have been captured as a file has come out. In addition, a product that uses a semiconductor memory having a large capacity has been proposed.
Conventionally, when a magnetic tape was used as a record medium, video data and audio data were recorded to the record medium in the unit of video data created after the record start operation until the record stop operation. Thus, it is preferred that video data and audio data be recorded as a file in the unit of data created after the record start operation until the record stop operation-because its affinity to the conventional recording system increases.
When video data and audio data that are continuously provided are recorded as a file to a record medium, their record time after the record start operation until the record stop operation may be restricted due to the restriction on the system. The restriction on the system may be contemplated to be the restriction of the file size on the file system applied to the record medium, the restriction with respect to management information of a file that stores video data and audio data, and so forth.
Next, the restriction on the file system will be described in brief. When a file recorded on a record medium is handled by a computer apparatus, the format of the file recorded on the record medium is necessary to correspond to the file system of the computer apparatus. When a low level file system used in computer apparatus is considered, files on the record medium can be read by many computer apparatus. For example, the file format on the record medium may be contemplated to have compatibility with the FAT 16 (File Allocation Table 16), which is a file system used in Windows (registered trademark) as one of OSs (Operating Systems) of computer apparatus.
In the FAT 16, the maximum size of one file is restricted to 2 GB (Giga Byte). In contrast, in the UDF, the maximum size of one file is much larger than 2 GB. Thus, if the size of a file recorded on the basis of the UDF standard exceeds 2 GB, this file cannot be handled on the FAT 16.
Thus, when the user uses, for example, a video camera, he or she needs to start and stop recording taking into account of the file system of a computer apparatus that uses digital video data recorded as a file. As a result, there was a problem of which the user-friendliness remarkably deteriorated. In addition, there was a problem of which before data for the recordable time were recorded to the record medium, since recording had to be stopped, the continuous record time corresponding to the record capacity could not be secured.
To solve this problem, it can be contemplated that the system monitors the size of a file that is being recorded, closes the file when the file size reaches a predetermined size, creates a new file, and continues recording with it. In this case, however, upon reproducing, an operation of continuously reproducing a plurality of files created by continuous recording needs to be performed. As a result, there was a problem of which the operation required a burden on the user.